But a look at some previous drafts shows there are no certainties when it comes to picking young talent.

In 2008, for example, Melbourne took the much-heralded Jack Watts with the first pick of the draft.

He has since struggled along with the rest of the Demons side, while second pick Nic Naitanui has become a cult superstar at ruck/forward for West Coast.

Further down in the same draft, Collingwood and Sydney grabbed some value with Dayne Beams (pick 29) and Daniel Hannebery (pick 30), who have both become elite midfielders in the AFL for their respective sides.

But the last number one draft pick to go on to win the Brownlow Medal was Adam Cooney, who was drafted by the Western Bulldogs in 2003.

To find the last number one pick to win a premiership medal, you have to go back even further to 2001, when Hawthorn selected Luke Hodge.

Hodge went on to become a dual flag winner for the Hawks and was the victorious premiership captain in 2013.

Question marks outside top group

The talk prior to the draft has been this year's selections are hard to pick outside the top echelon of 10 to 15 players, and that even in that first group the selection order may change.

After Boyd, it could be a midfield dominated opening to the draft.

Expectations are that Victorian onballer Josh Kelly will go to the Giants at pick two, but then it gets a little murkier, with South Australian ball-winning midfielder James Aish, Tasmanian defender Kade Kolodjashnij, Victorian midfield/forward Jack Billings, South Australian tall defender Matthew Scharenberg and Victorian midfielders Marcus Bontempelli and Nathan Freeman all tipped as possible selections somewhere in the top five or six.

The next lock is defender / midfielder Luke McDonald, who will go to North Melbourne at pick eight under the father-son rule. This is a sign of the times, and the changing rules in recent years regarding the price clubs have to pay to draft the offspring of their former players.

In times past, gun players like Gary Ablett junior (pick 40) and Jobe Watson (pick 40), would slide down the draft order, since clubs could afford to draft them later because they had no opposition.

Now if a club nominates a player (in advance) under the father-son rule, it has to bid against interested rival clubs. If a rival club makes a bid (in reverse draft order), the club that nominated the player has to use its next available pick to hold on to their selection.

Key forward Cameron McCarthy could be one to break the dominance of the midfielders, with Collingwood or Brisbane a likely destination.

Overall, the Brisbane Lions - who have lost a number of younger players in the trade period, as well as the retirement of Simon Black - are looking to rebuild with five picks inside the top 30.

Others who will play a significant role in the opening 30 selections are St Kilda (four picks), GWS (four picks) and Gold Coast (three picks).

But two of the highest-profile rookies in the league in 2014 will not even play a part in this week's draft.

Jack Martin (Gold Coast) and Jesse Hogan (Melbourne) were both taken through last year's mini-draft under the incentive selections rule.

This allowed the Suns and the Demons to get access to the talented young players at the age of 17, although they were not allowed to play in the AFL for the first year.

The players have taken a similar route to Jaeger O'Meara, who went to the Suns in the 2011 draft under the same rule - after a year of preparation, he hit the AFL last year with a bang, winning the Rising Star Award in a landslide vote.

The talk at the Suns in 2013 was that Martin was ahead of where O'Meara had been at the same stage of his development, leading to great excitement about his potential in a club already on the rise.

New Melbourne coach Paul Roos said this week that Hogan would have gone in the first two picks of the draft if he had not already been recruited under the mini-draft.

Even if Martin or Hogan have anything approaching similar seasons to O'Meara, their clubs will consider the draft moves a stunning success.